Black
by Diane Langley
Summary: I didn't have to read Bella's mind to know what choice she would make in the end, but... ONESHOT.


I didn't have to read Bella's mind to know what choice she would make in the end, but I have discovered through all of this that I am a master of denial. If I had been able to make my own reality for this, I would, at the very least, be able to close my eyes and imagine she was still here, but I cannot. I know far too well that she is not here. Her warm, soft body is gone, and I'm still here because I promised her I would not kill myself. The temptation is so great sometimes; I fulfilled the purpose for my existence by loving her utterly and completely, and now that is no longer necessary. Bella Swan does not need my love anymore.

Or should I call her by her married name now? Isabella Swan Black.

"_Oh Edward, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry,"_

She repeated her apologies over and over, in hundreds, no, in thousands, of different ways, but I wish she had not. Knowing that it hurt her, too, made it far harder than it would have been otherwise. Well, truthfully, it would have been impossible either way. If I were a living, breathing creature, it would have killed me, but as it is, nothing of this world can so easily kill me. Yes, dying of heartbreak would have been easier than living like this, but I cannot die so easily, and damn me, I cannot break a promise to Bella Swan.

Black. Bella Black.

"_You cannot kill yourself. Please, promise me you won't. Promise me, Edward. Alice, Carlisle, Esme… Your family… You cannot, _cannot_, leave them behind."_

"_You're asking too much, Bella. They will understand. I waited for you for my entire existence, and with my time with you done, my time here is too,"_

"_Promise me, Edward. For me. Oh, please promise me,"_

I did promise her, of course. I can't deny Bella's sweet face, her voice pleading with me. I've always said that I would do anything for her, and it would be hypocritical to then refuse to make that promise for her. I've kept it, too, never considered breaking it, beyond the occasional thought to how wonderful it would be to have this agony be over.

"_I never meant for this to happen."_

Oh, of course she had never meant for this to happen. I was the aberrant force, just a force too powerful for her to resist but not powerful enough to pull her from her destiny. How selfishly I wished I had been powerful enough for that, though. Or, if fate could have just been kinder and made her able to resist from the start. But this… it was so unbearable.

I attended her wedding, the wedding of the woman I love to another man. No, not even to another man. To a **dog**, a mongrel. I can't even think of him without rage. If it were not for Bella, I would kill him. I would gladly rip him apart, separate his head from his shoulders and watch that tongue loll out for the last time. It would be the only thing I could do that stood a chance at making me happy, for even a millisecond, other than having Bella back in my arms.

"_If only it had been different, if only I could have made it different…"_

Bella may have said those words, but I doubted she truly meant them because honestly, she could have made it different. Once upon a time, she had been the one fighting me to make it different, and I had been so stubborn. I had wanted her soul intact. I did not want her to suffer the same fate as my family and I suffered. Now she would never suffer it, but neither would she ever again be mine. It was a hard trade-off for her soul; particularly when I was not even sure that a soul was the price. For how could I love her as deeply, intensely, as I do if I do not have a soul? We already know I do not have a heart that beats, so that love must come from somewhere else, and a soul seems as likely an explanation as any.

"_I love him, Edward. He's… he's my soulmate. It's like we were put on Earth just to have one another… You… I love you so much, but… I was wrong. I cannot watch him grow old and die while I spend all eternity as a…"_

"_A vampire."_

"_It's not... the reason I was able to fall in love with him, even though I love you, is… he's mortal. I am too. We're… human, and… our love is… natural…"_

Unnatural. I know I'm not natural. I know natural beings breathe and sleep and eat food and drink water, but it was such a harsh way to think of it. Bella and Jacob… to think of them together, to think of them together and to have her thinking that was natural and right and good. The thought made me sick. It still makes me sick, particularly when curiosity gets the better of me and I reach out to read the dog's thoughts.

God, he loves her, but she has to share his love, for he also loves their children, his pack brothers and their wives and their children. His heart is split in so many directions that he cannot love her with all of it, and I… I love her with all of my… soul, I suppose, as surely as if I have placed my soul and my eternity, damned or not, in her hands.

"_What are you doing here, Edward? It's been so long… I thought… Hasn't your family moved to a new location?"_

"_Yes. But I had to come back to see you. Alice cannot see your future anymore, not now that he's in it. I had to know what happened to you,"_

"_I…"_

Bella hadn't had to answer my unspoken questions because right then, a little boy, an exact replica of the mutt, had peered around her leg to look at me. I remember distinctly the feeling as if I were a human who had been shot through the chest several times. I assume I didn't stagger as I turned and walked away, but perhaps I did. Bella didn't follow. She knew better. I had known she had children, but it was nothing to the shock of truly seeing that little… beast, a child of Bella's flesh and blood who looked exactly like his father.

The jealousy was… unreal. It would be impossible for me to explain it to you. Even if she had stayed mine, human or vampire, I could never have given her that. I could never have given her the magic of a child, the wonder of that little boy who reached out to hold her soft, warm hand as they walked along the beach, the little girl who was born later who would sleep in her lap. I could never have been the father that the mutt was, holding his children tenderly against his warm body. I could never have given her that.

And the jealousy that burns is unreal because not only am I not the one giving her that, the one unable to, but it's _him_ who can and is. The children are his flesh and blood too. They're _their_ flesh and blood. It makes me sick with rage and jealousy and sadness and… Oh, I cannot think about it for too long.

Bella, however, I think of all the time. I would not want to think of her less because she is still my whole reason for existence. To her and Jacob, in their fifties now, it seems a long time ago that she made her choice, but to a vampire who has lived through more than a century and can live for many more, it seems like I blinked and lost her. I wish I was able to sleep because then I could persuade myself that losing her was just a bad dream, that I could wake up to find her cradled against me again.

But I never will have that again, and neither will she. Jacob's thoughts do not seem to hold any idea that she misses it, but I hope he is wrong. I wish I could read Bella's thoughts, to know if her heart still beats for me at all.

"_I love you, Edward. Remember your promise. Remember that I still love you and that promise will always matter to me."_

I'm keeping my promise to her. I hunt enough to keep myself alive. I do not go to the Volturi and ask for them to destroy me to end my agony.

Damn me, I love her. I love her. I love her. I love her. Forever. For all eternity.

When I think of a note I once left for Bella, it sums up everything perfectly. It sums up how I feel, why it is impossible without her, why I am beyond miserable… It sums up everything in very few words.

"**Look after my heart -- I left it with you."**


End file.
